1960 Topps set build (through only trading)

About 9 years ago I started to build the 1960 Tops set. I had about 300 of the cards already from a large lot of vintage I found at a tag sale which included most of the star players. After paying $15 for about 25 more cards I decided that I would see if I can finish the set only through trading and not spending any more money on it. So far I counted that I am 78% of the way completing the set and I only spent $15. All the dealers in the Connecticut area know what I am trying to do and have been good with the trades. I usually buy other stuff from them and after I complete that transaction I throw in that I have more cards to trade for the set. Condition doesn't matter. The more beat up (loved) the better. I am trying to figure out what is going to happen when I get down to the last few stars and high numbers. Will people still want to trade? I will find out. This journey will probably take me another 9 years to finish but I am in no hurry. If anyone has beat up commons or minor stars that they want to trade let me know. I am almost done with the low numbers and am working on the mid numbers and high numbers now. I have lots of 1964 and 1967 commons to trade.

@Estil said:
Oh that is a nice set, especially the neat changing colors letters they did that year...plus IIRC it was the last time they did any horizontally oriented cards until 1971.

I agree about the design. Liked it so much I just finished a second graded 1960 set in PSA 8.

As for horizontals, I believe 1961 (several in the 400-411 range), 1962 (in Ruth special subset and switch hitter connects), 1964 (Koufax ws1), 1967 (card 1 with brooks and frank Robinson), 1968 (card 480 with Clemente, 490 mays/mantle), 1969 (fingers RC), and 1970 (2 of the 4 Blvd cards) had horizontal layout. Probably more in each of those years but those named above were the first that came to mind.

@Estil said:
I meant not counting subset cards...say, 70ToppsFanatic, do you mean the 70s decade or just the year 1970?

My user name refers to 1970 Topps Baseball. That was the first year I was buying packs of cards, racks and cellos in significant volume and aware that there were all of the different series that had to be collected.

I submit the following photo as “Exhibit A”

These are the leftover cello outer boxes from my childhood. Many of the cards I have today for my 1970 registry set were stored in these boxes over many years and then submitted and eventually became part of my registry set (named “9s or Better to Open”).

Being a fanatic for 1970 and an unopened collector I then supplemented the registry set with a wax pack representing every series and I’m still working on a rack and a cello representing every series. On top of that I have managed to track down a number of cellos with key stars showing on top and bottom, mostly Fritsch-sources cellos.

I also decided to go after full unopened boxes of all formats from 1970. I probably am not going to make it on the rack box, but as for the wax box and cello box that was achievable.

Here is “Exhibit B” showing a fully graded series 6 cello box (all cherry picked Fritsch packs based on the collation sequence) plus additional cellos from a number of series with stars showing

My 1970 fixation also includes the oddball items such as the booklets series and posters.

And while I will always stay insanely obsessed with 1970, my love for 1971-1976 is not far off.

Unfortunately a full PSA 9 set for 1971 is not a realistic goal given the low populations ao for that year its 8s and better with an effort to make sure as many of the stars as possible are 9s.

Here are “Exhibits C-F”

And yes, I’m doing the same kind of supplementing with unopened and oddball sets for these years too.

Overall I focus on postwar Topps baseball from 1951 to 1980.

1970 was just my first big year and so I dress that one up slightly above all the others

I sure hope someday I'll get to do 1971 (and 1972)...I always loved the black borders (and to a slightly lesser extent the colorful 1972...it would be Topps' biggest set (787) until 1982) but even at PSA 7 for the HOFers and checklists it'd be quite a challenge in terms of my rather meager pocketbook.

Wow you are making me really really jelly...I don't even want to think about how much those 9's go for in 1971...I bet getting them that high grade with those black borders is next to impossible...

Here’s kind of a silly idea, but it actually might be interesting. What if we started a thread where we tried to build a 1971 PSA 9 “registry” weset virtually together?

Everyone posts pictures of 1971 Topps baseball PSA 9s that they have into a pictures-only thread. In a separate thread we keep track of what has been posted so far, status, etc. And we only post cards in the picture that haven’t been posted already. Not sure if we can keep the card pictures in order, but I can reach out to the moderators and see what they can do to help us. I’d also ask if the would let us post the flip numbers collectively onto the registry.

In the end we are left with a thread that contains a virtual 1971 PSA 9 registry set that we “collected” together which everyone/anyone can enjoy forever.

If we get stalled and can’t get all PSA 9s then in the tracking thread we post something that says nowcslloeung PSA 8.5s. If that stalls the we move on to PSA 8s.

The only rules would be that people can only post cards that they currently own, so no taking pictures out of auction catalogues.

Given that it’s so unlikely that any of us could do this on our own it might be fun to share the experience and sense of accomplishment of doing a project lije this together.

@Estil said:
I meant not counting subset cards...say, 70ToppsFanatic, do you mean the 70s decade or just the year 1970?

My user name refers to 1970 Topps Baseball. That was the first year I was buying packs of cards, racks and cellos in significant volume and aware that there were all of the different series that had to be collected.

I submit the following photo as “Exhibit A”

These are the leftover cello outer boxes from my childhood. Many of the cards I have today for my 1970 registry set were stored in these boxes over many years and then submitted and eventually became part of my registry set (named “9s or Better to Open”).

Being a fanatic for 1970 and an unopened collector I then supplemented the registry set with a wax pack representing every series and I’m still working on a rack and a cello representing every series. On top of that I have managed to track down a number of cellos with key stars showing on top and bottom, mostly Fritsch-sources cellos.

I also decided to go after full unopened boxes of all formats from 1970. I probably am not going to make it on the rack box, but as for the wax box and cello box that was achievable.

Here is “Exhibit B” showing a fully graded series 6 cello box (all cherry picked Fritsch packs based on the collation sequence) plus additional cellos from a number of series with stars showing

My 1970 fixation also includes the oddball items such as the booklets series and posters.

And while I will always stay insanely obsessed with 1970, my love for 1971-1976 is not far off.

Unfortunately a full PSA 9 set for 1971 is not a realistic goal given the low populations ao for that year its 8s and better with an effort to make sure as many of the stars as possible are 9s.

Here are “Exhibits C-F”

And yes, I’m doing the same kind of supplementing with unopened and oddball sets for these years too.

Overall I focus on postwar Topps baseball from 1951 to 1980.

1970 was just my first big year and so I dress that one up slightly above all the others

@70ToppsFanatic said:
Here’s kind of a silly idea, but it actually might be interesting. What if we started a thread where we tried to build a 1971 PSA 9 “registry” weset virtually together?

Everyone posts pictures of 1971 Topps baseball PSA 9s that they have into a pictures-only thread. In a separate thread we keep track of what has been posted so far, status, etc. And we only post cards in the picture that haven’t been posted already. Not sure if we can keep the card pictures in order, but I can reach out to the moderators and see what they can do to help us. I’d also ask if the would let us post the flip numbers collectively onto the registry.

In the end we are left with a thread that contains a virtual 1971 PSA 9 registry set that we “collected” together which everyone/anyone can enjoy forever.

If we get stalled and can’t get all PSA 9s then in the tracking thread we post something that says nowcslloeung PSA 8.5s. If that stalls the we move on to PSA 8s.

The only rules would be that people can only post cards that they currently own, so no taking pictures out of auction catalogues.

Given that it’s so unlikely that any of us could do this on our own it might be fun to share the experience and sense of accomplishment of doing a project lije this together.

@70ToppsFanatic said:
Here’s kind of a silly idea, but it actually might be interesting. What if we started a thread where we tried to build a 1971 PSA 9 “registry” weset virtually together?

Everyone posts pictures of 1971 Topps baseball PSA 9s that they have into a pictures-only thread. In a separate thread we keep track of what has been posted so far, status, etc. And we only post cards in the picture that haven’t been posted already. Not sure if we can keep the card pictures in order, but I can reach out to the moderators and see what they can do to help us. I’d also ask if the would let us post the flip numbers collectively onto the registry.

In the end we are left with a thread that contains a virtual 1971 PSA 9 registry set that we “collected” together which everyone/anyone can enjoy forever.

If we get stalled and can’t get all PSA 9s then in the tracking thread we post something that says nowcslloeung PSA 8.5s. If that stalls the we move on to PSA 8s.

The only rules would be that people can only post cards that they currently own, so no taking pictures out of auction catalogues.

Given that it’s so unlikely that any of us could do this on our own it might be fun to share the experience and sense of accomplishment of doing a project lije this together.

Thoughts?

I like it. I only have two to contribute at the moment, but I'm on board.

@70ToppsFanatic said:
Here’s kind of a silly idea, but it actually might be interesting. What if we started a thread where we tried to build a 1971 PSA 9 “registry” weset virtually together?

Thoughts?

I don't find the idea silly at all...but is it even realistic? I mean getting 9's in any year from around early 70s on back is plenty hard enough but with those black borders...I must say your quest sounds like a pretty tall order to say the least!!